Day 8- The Grinch
by iminyjo
Summary: Making her ten-year-old son happy is all widow Michonne Hill wanted for Christmas. But with only two days left, she's feeling less than inspired. Enter her smokin' hot next-door neighbor Rick Grimes...who has a plan to get her into the holiday spirit! Day 8 in the Richonne Just Desserts *25 Days of Richonne* project.


Part of Richonne Just Desserts' **25 Days of Richonne** event on Tumblr. This corresponds to picture prompt (above).

 _Maybe André's little friends were right after all. Maybe she was a Grinch. 'Cuz God knew she hated everything about this..._

Michonne Hill took a step back from the chaos and gazed upon four hours of intense effort.

As night fell in earnest, the scope of it all became apparent. ... _And in all honesty, it was atrocious._ It looked as if drunk Christmas Elves had thrown up on her stoop. But it was bright and could compete with the resident Mr. Christmas, her next-door neighbor Rick Grimes. A widower, Rick took it upon himself to make a ridiculously elaborate Christmas display every year that thrilled not only his two kids but children far and wide, who would come with their parents on Christmas Eve night just to ogle at his efforts. Michonne didn't aspire to that at all, although her husband Mike had, once upon a time. She just didn't want her place to be a source of any more embarrassment for her son.

Just then, as if she had called him into being, while she stood pondering where to put a particularly obnoxious blinking Rudolf decal, Rick's front door opened. It took all the strength she possessed for Michonne to pretend she didn't notice him standing there. He bent over to pick up the Evening edition of the newspaper tossed up on his top step. From where she stood, she could see he was wearing a thin, grey thermal shirt that pulled tightly over his firm chest and blue jeans with no socks. He wrapped his arms around himself for a moment clutching his paper and looked around until he spotted her there.

Michonne shivered. And for one second, she was unsure if it was the frigid temperature or her hot neighbor that brought it on.

It had taken a while before she'd even been willing to acknowledge she had a little bit of a crush on the man. She had been certain all that equipment had broken–like her heart...and other parts–when Mike died. But sure enough, in recent months, every time she saw this guy all those old dusty, rusty parts purred back to life...to her chagrin. _Who could blame her?_ Rick was a man's man, who coached his son's baseball team in the summer but also a sensitive soul who had walked through the whole neighborhood in a pair of fairy wings to appease his daughter for Halloween. Playing both mother and father to his kids since his wife's passing six years earlier in childbirth, Michonne had always admired him, even before Mike died. Still, more recently, whenever Michonne saw him, she instantly grew flustered.

Rick caught her eye then and waved. Michonne paused before waving back as if she'd just noticed him standing there. He stepped out of his loudly decorated home at that moment, moved to the edge of his steps and peered over his railing at Michonne's handiwork.

"Nice," He called out, giving her the 'okay' sign with his thumb and forefinger.

Michonne pulled the flashing decal to her chest and bowed slightly to acknowledge him and his approval.

 _She bowed?! God, she was such a dork when she was smitten._

She covered her face for a moment in embarrassment. Then after a minute of pure mortification, Michonne was able to pull her eyes up from her palm. She looked back at her efforts then him as he turned and retreated back into his–no doubt toasty warm–house, closing the door behind him. Michonne was relieved.

It was hard to think with his eyes on her. _That was the other thing she'd notice lately._ She caught him looking more often now. Once upon a time, it had been a firm neighborly nod before both of them kept it moving. But recently, Michonne wasn't sure she didn't see long lingering looks. She knew for a fact her eyes were lingering at least. She was also certain there'd been a distinct uptick this season in his stopping by to return tools he'd borrowed from Mike years ago or borrowing sugar or milk for Christmas cookies and his grandma's special eggnog recipe.

 _Or maybe that was just her imagination._

She cocked her head left and right trying to mentally tackle the conundrum of her orphaned red-nosed reindeer. There wasn't really a free space on her entire façade below the second floor that wasn't covered in some travesty she'd found at the hardware store. A rosy-cheeked Mr. and Mrs. Claus peered back at her from the windows, Penguins in winter hats lined her steps, a doe and buck made of wire and white lights stood right by her front gate. Twinkling snowflakes lined her front door and the two front-facing bay windows of her parlor. Behind Santa and the missus, Michonne could see Sasha and her husband Abe laughing with André and their daughter Miranda as they all strung a string of cranberry and popcorn garland around the tree inside.

Just two years ago, that had been her and Mike and André together. Michonne's eyes brimmed with tears. She turned away from her busily decorated brownstone to look at the other buildings on the block. It had been true. Before tonight, her home had stood alone in its sparse decoration. It was obvious, the people inside her house barely knew Christmas existed, to compare her efforts to those of her neighbors.

Everyone else's front stoops looked as if they were actively trying to signal St. Nick from the sky. But hers had looked like, if her son hadn't said anything, she probably wouldn't have even bothered with any of it...at all. His little friends were right, she had become the Grinch. She clutched Rudolph to her chest as a single tear rolled down her cheek. She brushed it roughly away with her gloved hand before it could freeze there in the bitter cold.

"It looks like you might be done," The voice came from behind her.

Michonne turned startled to find Rick Grimes standing right behind her. "Oh!"

"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you." He said warmly and grinned winningly.

"No, not at all," She replied, pulling herself together quickly. She dragged her glove off her hand between her teeth and wiped her face again quickly. _He made her feel so self-conscious._ She pushed her locs back out of her face and pat her cheeks to warm them, returning his smile with one of her own.

"Here," He raised a mug up into the space between them. Michonne looked down at it confused. Not only by the steaming cup of what looked like hot cocoa but also by his gloveless hands.

In fact, he wasn't wearing anything more than he had been earlier, save a red and white woolen scarf wrapped around his neck and galoshes on his feet for the snow. No coat, no hat, nothing that reflected the weather at all. With his ice blue eyes glittering in the light, he looked like he'd been built for this weather. The chill made him ruddy but hearty-looking instead of cold, and more virile somehow.

 _Geez_.

"My God, you're hot," She blurted out before she caught herself then stammered. "Er, I mean, cold. _Not hot_. Cold. I meant, are you hot? That is, are you _not_ cold?"

He smiled and licked his lips before skewering her with a look and grin that suggested he knew _exactly_ what she meant. Still, he just offered up the mug again, raising it higher into her line of sight.

"No. not really," He answered right as she finally accepted it from him with a thank you. "My wife Lori used to say I just 'run hot'."

Michonne didn't doubt it. _Way hot_.

Michonne took a sip from the piping mug. It was delicious hot cocoa, just as she suspected...but with something else. She looked up at him in surprise.

"Grand Marnier." He answered her unasked question. "The other reason I'm hot."

He smiled naughtily as she blushed inwardly at her earlier slip of the tongue. She giggled, the cognac and triple sec concoction already warming her to her core and making her cheeks feel warm.

"So, is this what you and Mike were always doing out here so long?" She asked raising the mug to her lips slowly and feeling suddenly flirtatious.

"Well, as you know, Mike was a Macallan 25 man...but basically," Rick answered before reaching out to Michonne.

She looked down startled by his forwardness before she saw he was actually reaching for the Rudolph she still hugged tightly to her chest. She released it slowly, chuckling at herself and how one errant reindeer had so nearly been her undoing moments earlier.

"I don't know what to do with him."

"Send him back to the North Pole." Rick said easily.

"What?" Michonne said still confused.

"I think you've got enough up."

" _Excuse me?_ " Michonne said mildly affronted. She took a pause from imbibing the sweet ambrosia Rick had given her, to give him a sharp look. "I know _you_ aren't talking to me about 'enough', Mr. Grimes. Not with that Ode to Thomas Edison and the Electric Light Parade you've got going on over there."

Rick snorted.

"You're excused, Ms. Hill." Rick said while switching Rudolph off and shoving him firmly under his arm. "I can tell you don't know, but there's a rhyme and reason to this."

"Is there? 'Cuz I thought it was just to make your first-born-child part of your payment plan to the power company."

"Most of my lights are steady. One or two flash intermittently," He explained carefully and seemingly seriously ignoring her snark. "Michonne, you've got enough blinking, flashing and twinkling lights going on over here to set off some poor sap's Grand Mal seizures! Look, I don't know, you're the lawyer but this seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen. At the very least from the airlines, when their planes crash mistaking your house for signals from air traffic control."

She realized he was teasing her so Michonne smirked but her shoulders fell nonetheless. This is why she'd let Rick and Mike duke it out on their own all these years. She just wasn't cut out for this. And honestly other than her little doe and buck, she hated all of it anyway.

 _But this is what André wanted. Right?_

"I hate this." She admitted finally. "Bah-humbug."

"Now, now," Rick chuckled. "All is not lost." He added cheerfully.

"Let me grab Carl and some stuff from my bag of tricks. I have an idea. You go get André."

Michonne reluctantly surrendered the mug with the dregs of Rick's delightful concoction to him and watched his rear-end and broad sloping shoulders appreciatively as he retreated back to his house.

 _How much cognac was in that cocoa exactly?_ She wondered as her face warmed even more at the sight of his retreating form.

* * *

"What do you think?" Rick asked later from a lower rung on a ladder parked on her stoop.

"Well, it's certainly bright." Michonne answered, turning her head side-to-side to appreciate it at multiple angles. She stood with a gloved hand on her hip looking at it appraisingly.

"C'mon Mich, it was always gonna be bright." Sasha said standing beside her on the sidewalk. She huddled into her friend for warmth, pulling her small daughter into her knees. Rick's daughter Judith stood on the other side of the smaller girl showing her something in her mittened hands. They whispered together giggling and oblivious to what was happening with the adults around them.

"Is this row straight?" Abraham asked, holding the other end of a string of lights opposite Rick.

"What do you think, baby?" Michonne asked her son.

André looked up mirroring his mother's stance. "I think it's higher on Rick's side."

"No, not that. What do you think of all of this?" Michonne gestured toward the façade of the building to indicate her meaning. All the garish decor that had been up was now replaced by a festival of pure light.

Her son seemed to consider it. "It's not the way dad would have done it."

Michonne's face fell slightly before André's mittened hand slipped into hers. He smiled brightly.

"But this is really you, Mom. _Really us_...now. And it's just as cool."

Michonne pulled her son into her side and planted a big kiss on his forehead below his hat.

"It's perfect, guys." She finally answered Rick's question.

"Thank God. I can't feel my face." Abraham grunted, fastening the string of lights in place and hopping off his precarious perch on the railing.

Rick came down from the ladder. He folded it and with help from his son Carl, he walked it down Michonne's front steps. He paused near her and looked up at their exceptional handiwork. It was a lot simpler than the Christmas-themed crimes against humanity she'd been committing earlier, Michonne was willing to admit. But it was still just as bright..in other words, blinding. Her entire façade was strung with dozens of lights that illuminated the whole house almost like daylight. But there was no denying the inhabitants of _this_ house enjoyed the holiday season... _just more tastefully._

"Huh, it's a little boring for my taste." Rick offered before she tagged him in the side with her elbow. "But I'm just a country boy. I will say though, I agree with André, it's definitely you. Understated but gorgeous."

Michonne was momentarily stunned. "Are you saying I'm boring?"

"No, I'm saying you're gorgeous." Rick retorted easily and they shared a brief but potent look. Michonne suddenly felt as if the temperature outside had just risen by 50 degrees.

"Dad, I'll get this ladder into the garage." Carl offered quickly, clearing his throat and taking the ladder from Rick. "Dré, why don't you help me?"

André nodded and ran behind the teenager. "C'mon, Jude."

The six-year-old waved good-bye to them all and followed behind André.

"I'm pretty sure that's our cue too." Sasha said then from Michonne's other side. She bent and pulled her now-sleepy daughter up onto her hip. "Gotta get these two into bed."

"That's right. It's past my bedtime." Abraham confirmed with a smile though Michonne and Rick were barely listening.

They all exchanged goodnights as Rick stood at Michonne's side at the curb and she saw her friends off. When they were alone on the sidewalk, Michonne looked up at him. The snow flurries swirled between them, seemingly coating the entire block in silence. Small snowflakes clung to his hair and eyelashes. Michonne still couldn't believe he barely had anything on but a light jacket and that scarf.

"Thanks for this. It's festive but doesn't make me feel like I'm going to be motion-sick when I look at it."

"Well, it was my pleasure...to help you not be sick," He said, to which she chuckled, looking down at the new accumulation of snow beneath their feet.

When she looked up again, he was looking down on her and she felt flush under his gaze...at the way she could feel his eyes caressing her face. "Why haven't we ever done this before?" She asked earnestly.

"Decorated a house together?" He answered snarkily. She tagged him in his arm again playfully.

"You know, _this_." She said awkwardly deciding to dispense with the coyness.

"I don't know. I know I've wanted to for a while."

"Really?" Michonne asked astonished.

Rick nodded then shrugged. "I guess I was just waiting for you to get into the spirit, I guess."

He offered her an arm and after a moment she took it amazed by these utterly bizarre turn of events.

They both looked up at the beautiful new face of her building. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw something move over at Rick's house. It was the curtain shade as Carl and André and Judith quickly fell out of the frame of the window. Michonne nudged Rick to look quickly.

"Something suddenly tells me they were too." Rick said after looking to the windows of his home.

"You think the kids will be okay at your house for a minute?" Michonne asked as they headed up her steps arm-in-arm.

"Oh yeah, I gave Carl permission to order a movie and some pizza an hour ago."

" _Oh really?_ " Michonne paused on the top step.

"I mean, just in case," It was finally Rick's turn to be slightly flustered. "You know, figured an hour and a half or so might give us a chance to talk as we warmed up a little from the cold."

"Mmm," Michonne concurred wordlessly opening her front door. She was certainly warming up to this idea, at least. "I thought you didn't get cold?"

"Well, I guess for you to warm up... to me, then." Rick answered honestly.

 _So much for being a Grinch._ She thought with a sly smile on her face to match Rick's as she held the door open for him to enter behind her.

"Oh, I think I already am."


End file.
